Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/163

Rh PAriLUS. appears to have presided. Eusebius expressly states that this second council was held after the accession of Aurelian, who came to the throne in A. D. 270 [ AuRELiANUs], but Tillemont places it in A. D. 269 (see Vales. Annot. in Euseb. H. E. vii. 29). Whether a council was held between the two of which Eusebius speaks is not clear ; some expressions of Rufinus, and the circumstance that Firrailian visited Antioch twice on this affair {Epist. Synod, apitd Euseb. y'li. 30), lead Tillemont to conclude positively that three councils were held, but we think the proof insufficient. At the last council Paul attempted to conceal his opinions, but they were detected by the skill of the presbyter Malchion, who was, or had been, the master of one of the schools of secular literature at Antioch. The decision of the council appears to have been unani- mous : Paul was deposed, and Domnus, the son of Demetrianus, one of the former bishops of Antioch, was appointed in his room. Paul appears to have denied the jurisdiction or disputed the sentence of the council ; and, probably encouraged by the pa- tronage of Zenobia, refused to give up possession of the church. The council, therefore, found it needful to address a letter to the universal Christian world, informing them of their proceedings, and inviting them to recognise Domnus ; adding, with a sneer little becoming their dignity, " that Paul might, if he chose, write to Artemas (or Artemon), and that the followers of Artemon might hold communion with Paul." It is from this synodal letter, of which Eusebius has preserved {H. E.-vii. 30) a consider- able part, that our chief knowledge of Paul's cha- racter is derived. A letter of the council to Paul, before his deposition, is given in the Concilia of Labbe (vol. i. col. 844) and Mansi (vol. i. col. 1033). When the power of Zenobia was overthrown, and the East subdued by Aurelian [Aurelianus], the council, or rather those with whom it rested to carry out their sentence, appealed to the emperor. Aurelian referred the matter to the bishops of Italy, and, upon receiving their decision against Paul, ordered him to be expelled (Euseb. H. E. vii. 30) : after which event nothing more is known of him. A sect holding his opinions, and called from him Pauliani or Paulianistae (TiavKiaviaTai)^ existed for a time, but they appear never to have become important ; and in the fifth century were either en- tirely extinct, or were so few as to have escaped notice. Paul does not appear to have written much. The ten questions or propositions extant under his name, and addressed, according to the existing title, to Dionysius of Alexandria, have been noticed. A Greek MS. work, ascribed by some to Joannes Damascenus, contains a fragment of a work of Paul, entitled oi irpos ^aSeiavov uyoi. Ad Sabianum Libri, and some fragments of his are cited in the Concilia (vol. iii. p. 338, ed. Labbe). Vincentius Lirinensis, in his Commonitorium^ states that the writings of Paul abounded in quotations from the Scriptures both of the 0. T. and N. T. (Euseb. II. cc. ; Athanas. I.e. and Ad Episcopos Aegypt. et Lybiae, c. 4, De Synodis, c. 4. § 43, Contra Apol- linar. lib. ii. c. 3 ; Epiphan. Haeres. Ixv.; Augustin. De Haeresibus, c. 44 ; Theodoret. liaeret. Fabul. Compend. lib. ii. c. 8, 11 ; Phil^trius, Haeresis,xv.; Suidas, s. V. IlavXos ; Concilia^ vol. i. p. 843, &c. ed. Labbe, p. 1031, &c. ed. Mansi ; Cave, Hist. Liu. ad ann. 260, vol. i. p. 135 j Le Quien, Oriens PAULUS. 151 CliristtanuSy vol. ii. col. 705 ; Tillemont, Memoires, vol. iv. p. 289, &c. ; Semler, Hist. Eccles. Selecla Cap. Saecul. iii. c. iv. § ii. 2 ; Neander, Church His- tory (by Rose), vol. ii. p. 269, &c.; Priestley, Hist. of the Christian Church, vol. i. p. 396, &c.) 18. SiLENTiARius (StKcvTidpios). Vossius (De Historicis Graecis, iv. 20) and some other writers incorrectly call him Paulus Cyrus Floras. Agathias, from whom what little we know of his personal history is derived, calls him (Hist. v. 9, p. 153, ed. Paris, p. 106, ed. Venice, p. 296, ed. Bonn), IlauAoy Kvpov rod ^Xwpov or toG Kvpov tov *Aco- pov, which may be interpreted " Paul, the son of Cyrus Florus," or more probably, '* Paul, the son of Cyrus, the son of Florus." It is supposed by Ducange that Cyrus, the father of Paul, was the dvo VTvaTwv, " consul codicillaris, " who wrote several of the Epigrammata in the Anthologia Graeca (vol, li. p. 454, ed. Brunck, vol. iii. p. 159, ed. Jacobs). But if Jacobs is right in identifying the Cyrus of the Anthologia with the Cyrus of Panopolis, in Egypt, whose poetical talents are celebrated by Evagrius and Suidas [Cyrus, Chris- tians, No. IJ, and who lived in the time of the emperors Theodosius II. and Leo I., he can hardly have been the father of Paulus, who belongs to the time of Justinian I. Ducange seems disposed to identify Florus, the grandfather of Paulus, with Florus, diro virdrwv, "consul codicillaris," men- tioned in several of the Novellae, and in the Codeoa of Justinian ; but Fabricius thinks this Florus is of too late a date to be the grandfather of Paul. That the ancestors of Paul were illustrious, and that he inherited great wealth, are facts mentioned by Agathias (ibid,), who also tells that he was chief of the silentiarii, or secretaries of the emperor Jus- tinian (hs Sri TOTTpwra rekwv eu to7s afxcpl t6v fia- (TiKea (TiyTJs i-rriaTdTais). He wrote various poems, of which the following are extant : — 1. "EKcppaaris TOV vaov TTJs dyias :S,o(f)Las, Descriptio Magnae Ec- clesiae s. Sanctae Sophiae. This poem, consisting of 1029 verses, of which the first 134 are iambic, the rest hexameter, gives a clear and graphic de- scription of the superb structure which forms its subject, and at the second dedication of which (a. d. 562), after the restoration of the dome, which had fallen in, it was recited by its author, Agathias has attested (I. c.) the accuracy and com- pleteness of the description. He says, " If any one who happens to reside in some place distant from the city wishes to obtain a distinct notion of every part, as though he were there and looking at it, let him read what Paul the son of Cyrus, the son of Florus, has composed in hexameter verse." Du- cange adds his testimony also to the accuracy and clearness of the description, as well as to the elegance of the versification. The poem was first published by Ducange, from a transcript belonging to Sal- masius, from a MS. in the Palatine Library. Du- cange corrected the text of the MS., supplied the smaller lacunae, and added a valuable prefiice and Latin version, and a Descriptio Ecclesiae S. Sophiae, by way of commentary. With this illustrative ap- paratus, the work was published in the Paris edition of the Corpus Historiae Dyzantinae, sub- joined to the Historia of Cinnamus, fol. Paris, 1670 ; and was reprinted in the Venetian edition of the Corpus Historiae Byzantinae, with the works of Anna Comnena and Cinnamus, fol. 1729. It was again published, with the text revised by Bekker, ill the Bonn edition of the Byzantine historians, L 4